Dominican Republic Grows Baby Corals to Save Reefs and Fishing

Off Bayahibe, the Dominican Republic is testing coral “IVF” to help rescue reefs battered by warming seas. Scientists with Fundemar fertilize eggs in a lab, then return baby corals to nurseries—an experiment that could help protect beaches, tourism, and fishing livelihoods for generations.

Underwater Hope in Bayahibe

On Oct. 17, 2025, Michael del Rosario hovered over a nursery off Bayahibe, keeping his fins from burying new growth in silt. Metal frames shaped like spiders held “coral babies,” their colors returning, according to an Associated Press report by Teresa de Miguel.

Those babies began in Fundemar’s lab, where egg and sperm are joined, and young corals are raised for transplant. “We live on an island. We depend entirely on coral reefs, and seeing them all disappear is really depressing,” del Rosario told the AP. “But seeing our coral babies growing, alive, in the sea gives us hope, which is what we were losing.”

The stakes are visible in the data. Fundemar monitoring last year found 70% of the Dominican Republic’s reefs have less than 5% coral coverage, the AP reported. With colonies scattered, eggs and sperm are less likely to meet during the annual spawn. “That’s why assisted reproduction programs are so important now,” said Andreina Valdez, because what once was normal “is probably no longer possible for many species.”

Coral IVF and the Genetics of Survival

Corals are animals that spawn once a year, a few days after the full moon at dusk, releasing millions of eggs and sperm. Fundemar tracks that brief window, collects the material, fertilizes it in the lab, and tends larvae until they can return to the reef, de Miguel reported.

Inside the center, Ariel Álvarez uses ultraviolet light and a microscope to make the tiniest corals glow on a screen. Del Rosario told the AP the lab produces more than 2.5 million embryos a year, and only about 1% will survive once out at sea—yet he said that still beats today’s natural odds on reefs this depleted.

Restoration has also changed its logic. Cutting and transplanting coral pieces can rebuild faster, but it clones the same individual, Valdez said, so disease can strike an entire restored patch at once. Assisted sexual reproduction produces genetically different corals, widening the reef’s options in a hotter, sicker ocean.

Fishing an Island Economy Past the Reef

Assisted coral fertilization began in Australia and is spreading across the Caribbean, Valdez told the AP, with leading projects at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Carmabi Foundation in Curaçao. But Mark Eakin, of the International Coral Reef Society and retired chief of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch, warned the “800-pound gorilla of climate change” could wipe out restoration, the AP reported.

The AP cited UNESCO’s State of the Ocean Report, which found that oceans are warming at twice the rate they were 20 years ago. Heat triggers bleaching, pushing corals to expel the algae that feed them. Research by the University of British Columbia, published in the journal One Earth, found that half of the world’s reefs have been lost since 1950. In a hurricane corridor, losing reefs means losing natural breakwaters. “What do we sell in the Dominican Republic? Beaches,” del Rosario told the AP. “If we don’t have corals, we lose coastal protection, we lose the sand on our beaches, and we lose tourism.”

In Bayahibe, reefs are also a pantry: corals shelter more than 25% of marine life, the AP noted. Fisherman Alido Luis Báez leaves before dawn with his father, also Alido Luis, still going to sea at 65, de Miguel reported. To find good catches now, the younger Báez may travel 50 miles offshore. “We didn’t have to go so far before,” he told the AP. His father, who remembers the 1970s, told the AP that “in a short time” he would catch 50 or 60 pounds of fish. “But now, to catch two or three fish, they spend the whole day out there,” he said.

Back at the nursery, del Rosario keeps his language deliberately sober. “More needs to be done, of course … but we are investing a lot of effort and time to preserve what we love so much,” he told the AP.

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